Interdisciplinary Teams in Healthcare: We’re All in This Together

In 1987, when I began working for The Emory Clinic, the physician group associated with Emory University, the name Emory seemed to be the only thing the clinic had in common with the hospitals also affiliated with Emory University. Each hospital operated as its own entity with little coordination between them other than a shared billing system. The Emory Clinic (TEC) was further removed due to the differences in providing care in an ambulatory setting versus a hospital environment. TEC’s organizational hierarchy at the time was an organization populated by silos based on clinical specialties. Further alienation within those clinical sections could be found between the front office staff and clinical staff. And on the outside trying to manage it all, and ensure financial stability, was TEC administration and the business office. Cowen, Halasyamani, McMurtrie, Hoffman, Polley, and Alexander (2008) cited Neuhauser (1972) as having described a similar organizational structure as “a generic health system schematic consisted of a matrix of vertical clinical and ancillary departments crossed by ad hoc ensembles of workers involved in patients' care” (p. 408). Fast forward to 2013 and Emory Healthcare is the largest integrated healthcare system in the state of Georgia with affiliates throughout the state. The organizational structure is very different and no longer contains lines of demarcation. Process improvements are designed by interdisciplinary teams that represent the key stakeholders in the process, which includes the patient, physician, clinical and administrative support staff. This change in culture is a result of the successful creation of those interdisciplinary teams which included the identification of common goals and va...

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...ory Healthcare. That climate that is a result of a focused effort to bring about change through interdisciplinary teamwork.

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